


A

by mhunter10



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mention of attempted rape, Other, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:10:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mhunter10/pseuds/mhunter10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this for all the people whom don't normally see themselves in fanfic or anywhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A

“Uh, Mickey, right?” Ian asked, coming up next to him at the snack table.

Mickey looked up at the tall redhead in his way, then went back to smearing cream cheese on a bagel. “Yeah.”

“Ian.” He held out his hand for Mickey to shake but he just looked at it.

“Great.” Mickey shoved the bagel into his mouth and grabbed a cup of orange juice before heading out the classroom door.

Ian took a handful of crackers before following him down the hall and out the front door of the rec center. “So, what’d you think?”

“Meeting was bullshit,” Mickey said, finishing off his breakfast.

Ian quirked an eyebrow, “What do you mean? It was only the first one.”

“Most of the people in there weren’t even the real thing.” Mickey looked both ways before crossing the street. The guy kept up with him.

“How could you tell?”

Mickey stopped and turned to him, “As an asexual, you kind of just know.” He turned and kept walking.

Ian didn’t know exactly where the guy was heading, but he knew he didn’t want to leave. He laughed when he caught up. “So it’s like gaydar or something?”

“I’m not a fag.”

Ian thought about that for a moment, watching his shoes on the pavement. “Maybe they were just trying to figure out if they really were,” he said quietly.

“Well they came to the wrong fucking meeting,” Mickey stopped at a music store and walked inside, heading towards the back with the records. He started to look through some crates labeled ‘sale’, only slightly annoyed that the kid had decided to follow him in there too.

Ian watched the older boy pick up a few records, mumbling to himself about scratched vinyl. He hadn’t outright told him to leave him alone, so he figured he was okay…for now. He still didn’t know what it was drawing him to this guy he’d been watching since he introduced himself at the meeting that morning. He crossed his arms and leaned against a table piled high with records. Mickey had picked out one and was pulling on some headphones the store had set up along with a player for customers. Judging by the way he dressed and the knuckle tattoos, Ian would have never guessed he was into it all, but he seemed more comfortable bobbing his head to the music than he did surrounded by people who were supposedly just like him. He couldn’t shake what he had said, though, about automatically being able to sense something like that. What exactly was he seeing or not seeing in the other members sitting in the circle of chairs?

“What about me?” he heard himself asking, before realizing Mickey still had the headphones on.

Mickey turned and pulled one side away. “You say something?”

Ian flushed slightly, nodding his head. What was he doing here? He felt so awkward being in the presence of someone like him. Someone who knew. “Um…can you tell? About me?”

Mickey took the headphones fully off and hung them around his neck, coming over to the kid. Looking at him more closely now, he could tell he was younger but not by much. Maybe one or two years. He was tall, though, so he probably got away with acting older than he was. Mickey didn’t know why that mattered. He’d noticed him watching him during the meeting. Their eyes would meet and he would look away, but whenever he looked back he was met with green eyes. His red hair was a little curly, like he might have even had a fro when he was younger. Mickey didn’t know why he hadn’t told him to scram from the time the thing was over.

“If you’re asexual? I don’t know, are you?”

“Yes…well, I mean…..,” Ian let out an exasperated breath, his hand scratching at the back of his neck, “…I was at the meeting, wasn’t I?”

Mickey scoffed, “So were the rest of those fakers.”

“So you think I’m faking?”

Mickey shrugged, ducking his head. “Wouldn’t be the first time some loser showed up claiming they were just because they couldn’t get laid.” He said this more to himself, than as an actual answer to Ian. His mind instantly taking him back down a path he didn’t want to go.

Ian thought about what Mickey had said and how he said it. It wasn’t like he was just throwing out an insult to maybe make him drop it or leave. It had sounded way too specific…close to home even. “Does that happen a lot?”

Mickey fiddled with the cord of the headphones. He could still hear faint music coming out of them and wished he could just slip them back over his ears and tell him to fuck off. Instead he stood there biting his lip and staring at him. He finally just shrugged and made himself indifferent. “Whatever, man. You’re probably gay or something.”

Ian looked away, annoyed that he had actually thought he would get the story behind such a loaded comment. “I’m not,” he said with an air of smugness, crossing his arms. “Thought I was at first when I didn’t like girls like that, but then I realized I didn’t like guys like that either.”

Mickey couldn’t keep his mouth from twitching at the boy’s obvious change in tone. “Like what?”

“You know….like…,” he lowered his voice and leaned closer to Mickey, “…sexually.”

Mickey laughed, hitting him on the shoulder and pulling the headphones off. “Good for you. Maybe you just haven’t met the right canine,” he teased, walking back to the front of the store and out the door.

Ian ran after him, which wasn’t hard with his long legs. The guy was shorter than him by a head, and his legs sort of bowed when he walked. It was actually sort of cute.

“What, you mean like bestiality?” He made a face.

“Isn’t that what those conservative dicks say comes after homosexuality? People will start fucking animals?” Mickey kept walking, his pace brisk.

Ian’s eyebrows furrowed. “I guess, but what does that have to do with me?”

Mickey shook his head and breathed out hard. “Nothing, man. I’m just saying what’s the point of labels if everybody has their own fucking definition of what you are anyway?”

“Oh.” Ian wasn’t sure if he exactly understood what Mickey had just said, but it sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Or maybe that was just how he talked to make people think he did. It was sort of working. He stayed quiet for a while, walking beside the other boy with his hands in his pockets.

Mickey suddenly slowed and came to a stop outside of a pizza place on the corner. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. He lit it and took a drag, blowing smoke away from them. “Why’d you even go if you weren’t sure?” he asked, leaning against the brick.

Ian shrugged, looking towards a car speeding through the intersection.

Mickey rolled his eyes and took another drag. “Why’d you follow me then? What were you hoping, I help you figure it out?” He flicked the ash away. He could see the kid was a little embarrassed or…ashamed? He held the cigarette out to him.

Ian looked at it for a second then took it gratefully, pulling smoke into his lungs and blowing it out his nose. He noticed Mickey watching him the whole time he did this, so he quickly handed it back to him. “I know I am that way. I just thought going and seeing what it was like for other people would somehow make me more…” he trailed off, thinking for the word he wanted to use without sounding as lame as he already did.

“Sure?” Mickey offered through a mouthful of smoke.

Ian nodded, “Yeah.” Mickey seemed to consider that a moment, but he didn’t say anything, so Ian continued, “Of everybody in there, you seemed to be the most sure of yourself. Like, you just knew who you were and what it meant,” he looked him in the eye.

“When you been through what I have, you learn a few things,” Mickey said matter-of-factly.

Ian chuckled to himself, running a hand through his hair. “Thought you could, I don’t know…like, teach me how you do it or something.” He knew he was probably blushing.

Mickey snorted, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his boot. “First thing you gotta learn, then, is stop with all that ‘like that’ and ‘that way’ bullshit, man. You’re an A. Own up. We’re not a fucking other.”

Ian laughed, but Mickey fixed him with a glare.

“You think I’m fucking joking? If you don’t call yourself what you are, ain’t nobody gonna do it for you. Especially since they think we don’t exist.”

“It’s not like we’re like the Easter bunny, or freakin’ Jesus.”

Mickey cocked his head and licked his lips. “Don’t stop them from trying to fix us.”

Ian noticed the same look from before was on Mickey’s face. Like he was getting sucked into his own thoughts and fighting to push his way out.

Then Mickey was asking him if he wanted pizza and walking inside the place and to a booth in the very back. Ian sat across from him. He started to grab a menu, but Mickey pulled it out of his reach. Instead he turned towards the front counter and yelled at the man working the register.

“Manny! Lemme get a pie with extra cheese and two Cokes!”

“And what are you gonna do for me, huh?” the older man shouted back in a thick accent from somewhere in the Mediterranean. He came from behind the counter and walked over to their table, wiping his hands on a dirty rag and then wiping the table with it.

“You got dishes?”

“Paolo is in today. You do boxes.”

Mickey sucked his teeth, “Again?”

Manny waved his rag at the boy. “Yes again. Ten minute for your pizza, and no smoking!”

Mickey waved the man away and rolled his eyes.

“You work here?” Ian asked.

Mickey shook his head. “Nah. I just do stuff for free pizza sometimes.”

“Cool.” Ian smiled.

“Manny’s a good guy.”

Mickey was looking down at the table. Ian knew there was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t press. A boy Ian could only assume was Paolo came out of the back with two cups and set them on their table.

“Hey, Mickey. My dad said you were staying today.” His accent wasn’t as noticeable.

“Yeah, somebody has to work around here,” he teased.

Paolo laughed, “You sound like him.” He turned and left after nodding to Ian.

“He seems cool,” Ian says conversationally, sipping his drink.

Mickey burps loudly after taking five large gulps of his soda. “Yeah. We’re friends.” Ian nods, not sure what to say to that. Mickey stares at him a while before starting like he remembered something. “And another thing, being asexual is not just about not wanting to fuck anybody, alright? There’s more to it, like…like a pizza.”

Ian snorted, almost spitting out his soda. “So now we’re pizzas?”

Mickey couldn’t help but laugh at how silly that actually sounded. “Nah, no, man. I just mean that there’s more to pizza than just toppings. There’s more to us than just the no sex thing.”

“Like being able to still make meaningful connections with people who aren’t family, without there being weirdness?”

Mickey hadn’t been expecting him to understand what he’d been trying to say. His eyebrows raised in surprise for a second and he grinned, nodding. “Yeah, exactly. We’re still capable of being human, so people shouldn’t act like we’re not.”

“Sex isn’t everything.”

“I like you, kid,” Mickey said, genuinely meaning it. So many times had he tried to explain this very concept to the people who were supposed to love him, his own family, and none of them had even wanted to hear it. To them and everyone else, it just meant something was wrong with him.

Ian turned red and ducked his head, using his drink as a distraction. “I’m smarter than I let on,” he laughed, meeting Mickey’s eyes.

“I can see that. Maybe you’re not hopeless after all.” Mickey stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth and it made Ian laugh more, covering his smile with his hand. Mickey thought it was a pretty spectacular smile. At least, he wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.

Paolo came out with their pizza and they dug in, grabbing more slices as they talked through mouthfuls of crust and cheese. Ian was enjoying himself. It certainly wasn’t what he had been expecting when they walked in, but then again he hadn’t been expecting to even be following around a guy he met at a meeting a few hours ago. It was strange how he was already starting to feel like they could be friends. Judging by how Mickey had changed towards him since the beginning, he probably wouldn’t have any objections. Little did he know that Mickey was thinking the exact thing, as he shoved more pizza in his mouth than he should have. It was good, but he didn’t trust himself not to say something that would bring the easy conversation to a screeching halt, or at the least an awkward turn. He wasn’t prepared for how comfortable he felt just talking nonsense with this redheaded kid that just came out of nowhere. He didn’t know if he liked knowing it was possible to have someone just to hang with. He rarely hung out with people, mainly because it was either his siblings, his clients or his dealer. The closest he’d got to having a friend that could have been more, ended up going horribly wrong and he definitely didn’t want to go through something like that again. So why was he letting his guard down so quickly with this one? What was it about him that made him want to keep this going as long as it could? Then he’s smiling and Mickey knows.

“What are you thinking about?” Ian asks quietly, his eyes looking like he already knows there’s something going on in Mickey’s head. But he wasn’t exactly asking for an honest answer. In fact, he had set him up so that he could easily throw out anything and that would be that.

Mickey knew he should say nothing, deflect like he always does and take the guy’s out, but he doesn’t want to. That morning was the first time he’d actually been back to a meeting like that. For a long time he couldn’t bring himself to be around anyone, or trust them for that matter. He didn’t know what to do, and he didn’t have anyone but Manny and Paolo. Maybe he could start with them?

“Manny and Paolo saved my life,” he tried in a lowered voice. There wasn’t anyone else around, but he still felt he’d rather not have anyone hear what he was about to say…to tell.

Ian couldn’t help but feel a little special that he had got that much out of Mickey, but he didn’t want to push him and have him close up. So, he said nothing and waited intently for him to continue.

Mickey took a deep breath, sitting back and getting comfortable. At least his body could be, while he was recounting his story. He appreciated that Ian decided he should shut up. “Yeah, I met this guy at one of the meetings and we sort of started off not so differently than we did today. Everything felt so exciting and new and shit just I had just finally admitted it to myself. I finally knew what I was and it felt awesome, really fucking awesome. Then this guy and I start spending all this time together, practically inseparable, you know? But I was too stupid to realize that not everybody was what they said they were,” Mickey gulped hard, feeling his throat tightening up with every sentence he spoke. The closer he got to actually saying what had happened, the more he just wanted to stuff it all back down into his stomach that was starting to feel funny from the pizza and soda. He wouldn’t look at Ian either. He couldn’t with the way he knew he was looking at him. It reminded him too much of the very thing he had fallen for that got him into a lot of trouble. Ian shifted back in his seat. It wasn’t an impatient move, just one to let Mickey know that he wasn’t going anywhere and that he was listening. He could see how nervous Mickey was, fiddling with anything he could get his hands on, but he could also see a hint of determination, like he had been waiting for a chance to finally get everything off his chest and he wasn’t going to let his fear stop him. It was just going to take a while for his usual confidence to come through. He didn’t think it was possible to admire him more than he had when he first saw him, and he hadn’t even heard the rest of the story yet.

“Anyway, the guy was always saying this shit that made me question, but he was just….I don’t know, manipulative?”

Ian wanted to say “an asshole”, but he didn’t. That wasn’t his call to make, and would probably make Mickey feel worse about getting mixed up with him. He kept his mouth shut and nodded.

“He and I were here one night when he said we should take a smoke out back. I followed him because that was what we did, you know? It was all normal until he started spouting that stuff again about really knowing for sure and asking how I knew if I’d never tried. Looking back now, I feel like a fucking idiot for not seeing through all of it. I would have knocked him the fuck out if I’d known what was coming…” Mickey stopped to drink eagerly from his cup, the melted ice making the soda taste awful but he was so thirsty all of a sudden. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs and he felt like the pounding in his head was going to make it explode eventually. He ran a hand through his hair and actually glanced up at Ian, which was surprisingly helpful. Something about his calm face and posture made Mickey relax a little. When Ian smiled encouragingly, he didn’t feel like he was going to jump out of his skin.

Mickey took a couple breaths to get him going again. “So he starts backing me up and getting too close, touching me and saying shit I never heard him say before. It was like he turned into some…snake, and the more I pushed him away, the more he just laughed and kept going. He…he put his hands down my…..they were everywhere and I’d never realized how much bigger he was. I mean, I’m used to fighting. I can defend myself, you know? In this neighborhood it’s mandatory. But I just couldn’t….I couldn’t…couldn’t,” Mickey put his head down and breathed hard. His face felt sweaty and it was too hot in there. He was about to scream or run or both when he felt Ian’s hand lay tentatively on his shoulder. It made him freeze at first, a whole flood of memories telling him to push it off and get away, but it wasn’t an aggressive touch. It wasn’t the boy’s hand in his clothes down the alley. He was sitting across from someone totally different, that wasn’t trying to make him be something he couldn’t be; make him do something he didn’t want. The hand got firmer, grounding him until he could breathe right.

“It’s okay, Mickey,” Ian whispered. He didn’t try to move his hand anywhere else, and he certainly wasn’t going to go sit next to him or anything like that. Only if he wanted that, but Ian felt his hand was enough to handle. “It’s alright.”

Mickey remembered hearing those exact words in the alley. His mind had blocked out as much of the ordeal as possible, but he would always remember the sound of voices that weren’t whispering hotly in his ear how unnatural he was and how he needed to be helped this way.

“Paolo came out with the trash and saw what…what was happening, and he ran to get Manny,” Mickey finally lifted his head and looked Ian in the eyes, feeling nothing but the weight of his reassuring hand. “They saved my life, Ian. They saved me.” He wasn’t going to let the wetness at his eyes fall. He roughly brushed them away with the palms of his hands and sniffed a few times.

Suddenly Paolo was standing there looking concerned for his friend. He set down a glass of water that Mickey gladly took and chugged down until it was gone. He pulled a few napkins from his apron and handed them to Mickey.

“Thank you,” Mickey said, his voice a bit ragged.

Paolo leaned down and looked him in the eyes. “It was me in trouble once, when people don’t want to understand how anyone can be born in the wrong body, but you rescued me. It was my turn to do the same for you.” He kissed the top of Mickey’s head and went back through the door after clearing their table.

“So I guess you guys are even,” Ian finally said.

Mickey nodded, “Some jackasses were harassing him in the bathroom when he was still transitioning. I walked in and taught them a lesson.”

Ian laughed, “You’re a good teacher.”

Mickey’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “I said the only pussies in there were them,” he chuckled.

Ian smiled, showing all his teeth. It made Mickey feel better seeing it.

“You guys were lucky.”

“Yeah. They’re like my family, them and my sister, Mandy. I’m still working on her, though.”

Ian nodded, “I’m glad. Only my older sister and brother know, and that’s good enough for me right now. You make your own family when you’re like us.”

Mickey cocked his head, raising an eyebrow, “Like what?”

Ian grinned, thinking back to the first lesson Mickey had taught him. He ducked his head a second then looked up at him. He took a breath, “Asexual.”

Mickey laughed, “Now, you’re getting it.”


End file.
